We’re talking about practice, man.
I am not the Allen Iverson of Web Dev
“We’re talking about practice! We’re talking about practice… We ain’t talking about the game! We’re talking about practice, man! When you come to the arena, and you see me play… You see me play, don’t you?”
This is one of the most famous press conferences in the history of the sport. Allen Iverson was confronting a reporter about him missing one practice for personal reasons.
The journalist was trying to build up a controversial piece. Allen Iverson downplayed the whole thing. He said that with his talent, missing one practice wouldn’t have made any difference.
Fair enough. There’s a reason if AI is one the best players to have played the game.
Unfortunately, I don’t have his level of transcendent skills in anything so that I can apply his views to my life. There’s only one way for me to succeed and achieve my goals.
Practice. Yes, we’re talking about practice.
Recently, I have decided to get back to my first professional love: coding.
Web development has always been a huge passion and, although I took another professional route for a couple of years, I have always thought of myself as a developer.
It’s just the love for the challenge against a programming language. The logic conundrums you have to face and solve every day. The satisfaction of seeing your lines of meaningless code shape into a beautiful finished product.
I hadn’t touched a line of code for almost three years and the first couple of weeks have been pretty traumatic.
My brain doesn’t seem to work like it used to. I am struggling to see the whole picture, and every task takes me at least three times as long as it should. It’s been humbling and slightly discouraging.
I am not getting disheartened, though. This whole experience made me understand the value of practising your craft every single day. No exceptions. No excuses.
Working daily on something is the only way to achieve a level that will allow you to succeed. A level that will allow you to be considered professional and authoritative in your field.
There are no shortcuts. No hacks. It’s just hard work, tears and sweat.
When you practice hard, there are some obvious advantages. You improve because you learn something new every day. You get quicker and manage to produce more work. You also etch in your mind a lot of notions that you won’t need to look up anymore. You start seeing connections and patterns forming. That’s when things will get interesting.
The daily grind will refine all your skills and make your frame of work much more robust. It’s like physical training, the more you get out there, the better your body gets, the better you can train. It works like that for everything.
Effort and patience are the only variables we can control are this maze called life.
It’s the daily practice that makes us what we are. It’s the constant battle with that vicious voice that tells us to give up. It’s the struggle with our insecurities, tiredness and mental limits.
That friction, that uncomfortable grey area is where the magic happens. That’s where you progress. That’s where you become your true self. Your accomplished self.
That’s where I want to be. That’s why we’re talking about practice.
